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Hey! I saw posts from here on my feed, and have been sucked in. Beautiful keyboards!

But, I'm a bit overwhelmed with options. If I want to get started with an EMK, what would you suggest?

I am comfortable with general soldering (though haven't done surface-mount), so putting a kit together should be doable. I use a Dvorak keyboard layout, so would prefer a way to customize keycaps. But ... I would prefer a kit that comes with everything (or at least a checklist), and doesn't require me to figure out what components to order, to help ensure I have compatible parts.

Thanks for your suggestions!

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[-] robotdna@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I'd like to give a +1 for Beekeeb as a vendor. Leo there is a rockstar with incredible support. They provide kits with everything in them so you can assemble them like Legos, or presoldered and assembled boards too. Beyond that, Beekeeb invests in open source, often releasing new designs but also publishing variations of boards and cases and firmware for all of us to use.

[-] obosob@feddit.uk 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A good place to start is our wiki, you'll find there a small list of some popular keyboards as well as links to other databases of keyboards what hopefully will help you. some obvious ones: Corne (crkbd), Kyria, Iris, Lily58, Sofle, Sweep.

If you search, the open-source ones linked generally are being sold as kits in a few places, so have a look around. you can see a list of vendors in our wiki too, it may not be exhaustive but it's pretty comprehensive.

[-] corvett@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

I'm an absolute beginner, and I went with Beekeeb's Piantor keyboard. I couldn't be happier.

The MBK Legend keycaps have homing versions for Colemak and Dvorak in standard kit if you go that route. They're great keycaps

[-] apfel@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Depending on what region you're in, there's probably gonna be some folks selling cool ergomech kits. I'm personally in the EU, can recommend keeb.supply, Keycapsss, 42keebs, splitkb.com, Keygem.

I'm probably forgetting some, and these are only the EU-based ones. Maybe someone else could recommend vendors in other regions :)

[-] Risk@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago

Whew boy, what a rabbit hole chancing into this thread was for me.

Went to keeb.supply and then that fantastic word document on keyboard layouts and now I want to buy a soldering iron, hundreds of pounds of keyboard parts, and learn an entirely new layout.

[-] apfel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Aay very happy that linking that document in the intro to small keyboards helped someone :)

You can also easily try alternative layouts on your current keyboard via tools such as kmonad.

this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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ErgoMechKeyboards

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Ergonomic, split and other weird keyboards

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Posts must be of/about keyboards that have a clear delineation between the left and right halves of the keyboard, column stagger, or both. This includes one-handed (one half doesn't exist, what clearer delineation is that!?)

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